Japanese-style Pub by Takuma Kimura as shiny as if freshly laid You are a melancholy fruit. Solanum Melongena. Every animal is sad after eggplant. Erica Jong, The Eggplant Epithalamion It is a sort of dream, which coincides With the pacific relaxations … Continue reading →

David Lee Roth by Jon Iraundegi My first time in the spotlight Was from a helicopter Little Texas I get up And nothing gets me down You got it tough I’ve seen the toughest around. And I know, baby, just how … Continue reading →

People with nothing to hide don’t usually feel the need to say so. Michonne, The Walking Dead People could say a lot of negative things about the apocalypse, but there was no arguing the air quality in Los Angeles had … Continue reading →

Sanshiro Sugata (1943) from japanesefilmarchive What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow; What are brief? Today and tomorrow; What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth; What are deep? The ocean and truth. Christina Rossetti, What Are Heavy? Fortune, honour, beauty, youth, … Continue reading →

judoka from thejiujitsulab.wordpress.com I was determined to go to Japan to outstrip them all, to learn judo. It wasn’t to go to the Olympics, it was to become really, really good at judo. Doug Rogers How very Canadian – I … Continue reading →

photo: Postwar Tokyo Map – showing destroyed areas by Justin Cozart Long ago, before writing, you’d send someone a stone letter. A stone that suited the way you were feeling. From its weight and touch, they’d know how you … Continue reading →

The Papal Conclave by Chan Lowe It was International Women’s Day on 8 March. By chance this great cartoon by Chan Lowe from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel was syndicated in today’s Daily Yomiuri in Japan (Monday, 11 March … Continue reading →

photo: Herakles wrestling with Triton from MCAD Library This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings. Rainer Maria Rilke, The Beholder which one of them is raw, or baked in the sun or not, … Continue reading →

painting: Wild Horse by Elena Drobychevskaja sinking sand skin and bone bring on the dancing horses Echo and the Bunnymen, Bring on the Dancing Horses I am a feather on the bright sky I am the blue horse that … Continue reading →

If you make every game a life-and-death thing, you’re going to have problems. You’ll be dead a lot. Dean Smith, basketball coach Once you’ve done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself into the action … Continue reading →

What I say is, patience, and shuffle the cards. Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote A man’s idea in a card game is war – cruel, devastating and pitiless. A lady’s idea of it is a combination of larceny, embezzlement and … Continue reading →